Five noteworthy aspects of Britain's tough spending plan

Policing, prisons

The Home Office, which handles policing, will swallow a 6 percent cut each year for the next four years, with 4 percent of that falling on police funding each year. The budget for counterterrorism policing will be cut by 10 percent, the smallest cut in the Home Office department. The Ministry of Justice budget will take a 23 percent cut over the next four years. That means a complete halt to plans to construct a new prison as well as a reduction in the number of inmates at several other prisons, which will translate into 3,000 fewer prison places overall by the end of that period.